Tag Archives: flash fiction

January 28, 2015

Lighting the Way Home – Friday Fictioneers

I am intrigued with story tone, how just a few words can make all the difference to a story. So, for this story, I’m going to let you choose the tone. This story has four endings, all written in white font. Click the text with your left mouse button and drag to block the hidden text and reveal the ending of your choice. Then vote for your favorite.

Lighting the Way Home

There is a switch in the basement unconnected to any circuit. I always leave it on, hoping that somewhere, it is connected to a light that will lead Brad back to me from beyond.

*

I am sitting in bed, the silver moon fluorescing the room through the window, when the door opens.

“You came back.” I can barely breathe from joy.

“I saw your light,” Brad said. He kisses me, but his lips are cold and I taste decay.

_____________________________________________________

1. Scary

“I came back for you,” he whispers. I jerk awake, gasping, and run to the basement, clawing at the accursed switch.

_____________________________________________________

2. Sad

“Are you real?” He doesn’t answer. I reach out and he starts to recede. “Brad!”

I wake, tears soaking my pillow.

_____________________________________________________

3. Quirky

“Are you still dead?” I ask.

He smiles sheepishly. “Yeah. Can I come to bed?”

“Fine. Brush your teeth first, though.”

_____________________________________________________

4. Silly

“I love you, Beth,” he says.

“My name is Heather,” I say.

“Shit, I got the wrong house again.” He disappears.

_____________________________________________________

48 Comments | tags: death, dream, fiction, flash fiction, Friday Fictioneers, funny, ghosts, horror, multiple endings, quirky, silly | posted in Friday Fictioneers

January 25, 2015

Hooked on Books

By David Stewart

Hooked on Books

I was about to close up shop when a man staggered through the door. He was a word-head for sure: thin, and pale from too many hours under a desk lamp. His eyes flicked back and forth spasmodically: left to right, left to right.

“What can I get you?” I asked warily. I got this kind in sometimes. They were usually content to read a brochure or scrap of newspaper for the handful of grubby coins they were able to scrape together.

He leaned forward and his voice was a sandpaper whisper. “Fiction.”

“Fiction? That’s some heady stuff. Can you afford it?”

He pulled out an envelope and started pulling out wrinkled bills: singles I thought until I saw the zeros. Each one was a grand. When he stopped, there were ten bills on the counter, which equaled my profits for several months. “First edition,” he said.

I only had one first edition in the shop. It was A Farewell to Arms, by Hemingway, bound in lustrous leather. The asking price was $1200. I looked at that money on the counter. It probably wasn’t legitimately earned, but I could put it to work.

Then I thought of that beautiful book as a temporary high, misused when a cheaper version would do fine. It was like brown-bagging a Dom Perignon.

“Sorry,” I said finally. “I can’t help you.”

He left, grumbling and I watched him go, my mind a churn of polar emotions. I don’t regret it though. I guess I’m hooked on books too.

16 Comments | tags: addict, Alastair's Photo Fiction, book store, books, fiction, first edition, flash fiction, word-head | posted in Dusk

January 21, 2015

Tidings by Tide – Friday Fictioneers

By David Stewart

No text this week, just pictures. Still 100 words exactly though.

Tidings by Tide

44 Comments | tags: adventure, bottle, creepy, disappearance, fiction, flash fiction, fog, Friday Fictioneers, Innsmouth, lovecraft, message, reef, stranded | posted in Friday Fictioneers

January 14, 2015

Stare – Friday Fictioneers

By David Stewart

Stare

Adam stood by his tenth story apartment window and stared at the woman across the road, their gaze locked as tight as lovers’ lips, their expressions as vacant as the honeymoon suite at Hotel Cholera.

Suddenly, two pigeons collided between them. Their beaks locked together and one tried to fly up while the other went down. Back and forth they went, the commotion resembling two mimes having a screaming match in a washing machine.

Adam’s mouth twitched.

His phone buzzed.

“Hello?”

“You smiled.”

“Dang it! How did you not?” He looked away and blinked his tired eyes.

“Another round?”

30 Comments | tags: fiction, flash fiction, Friday Fictioneers, funny, mime, pigeon, quirky, stare, staring contest | posted in Friday Fictioneers

January 11, 2015

A Ghost of a Chance of Success

By David Stewart

A Ghost of a Chance of Success

Honestly, I only tried it because my wife said I couldn’t do it.

She gets me to do all kinds of things that way. “I’ll bet you don’t have the guts to marry me,” she said one indolent afternoon 27 years ago, when the summer crickets were in full concert.

I sure showed her.

The challenges started with the mundane: “Bah, you couldn’t mow the lawn if you tried.”

You’d think I’d learn but I had to show her who was boss. Soon I was doing most of the housework while she watched TV and occasionally called out her disbelief in my ability to do various small tasks that I had forgotten.

Eventually, her challenges crossed over into more exotic realms but I never backed down for a second. I spent most of 2013 trying to build a time machine but eventually just built a very small museum and declared victory.

For this latest challenge, I’ve assembled all the things I might need: a large glass bottle, a tombstone, a Bible, a copy of the Necronomicon (just in case) and a liter of ectoplasm.

Now how on Earth am I going to make a ghost ship in a bottle?

19 Comments | tags: Alastair's Photo Fiction, bottle, fiction, flash fiction, funny, ghosts, marriage, ship, wife | posted in Light

January 7, 2015

The Summer of Subtraction on Sixty-Six – Friday Fictioneers

By David Stewart

The Summer of Subtraction on Sixty-Six

It was one of those once-in-a-lifetime ideas: five guys driving Route 66 from Chicago to LA.

Dennis didn’t even make it out of the gate. After a 5-hour delay, we said screw him.

Marcus fell hard for a greasy spoon waitress near Carthage, Missouri; named Dido, no less. After a bitter battle, we sailed, another man down.

Aziz got drunk and fell into Oologah Lake in Oklahoma. He was busted up so bad they had to air-lift him to Tulsa.

John got bad news about his grandfather and flew home from Albuquerque.

I drove on. Best summer of my life.

69 Comments | tags: Albuquerque, Carthage, Chicago, Dido, driving, fiction, flash fiction, Friday Fictioneers, LA, Missouri, Oklahoma, Oologah Lake, road trip, Route 66, summer | posted in Friday Fictioneers

January 4, 2015

Blind Angel Luck

By David Stewart

Today is my birthday, although this story has nothing to do with that.

Blind Angel Luck

The angel in my hand was blind, projecting an air of bland, unfocused benevolence out into the world. That was how I had envisioned it when I bought it: a chunk of divine plutonium, radiating good luck and positive vibes to all those nearby. It hadn’t really worked out that way.

“Hey, is this for sale?” my friend Phil asked, picking it up. People were circulating through my apartment, looking over the price-tagged items. I told people I needed to de-clutter. No one was fooled; I could barely buy food.

“Just take it,” I said, “if you dare. I bought it for good luck, after all.”

“Ah.” He put it in his pocket, then slipped $20 into my hand. “I’ll take my chances,” he said with a wink.

Two hours later, the sale was over and I was just sitting down in my much-emptier living room when someone pounded on the door. It was Phil.

“It worked! It worked!”

“What worked?”

“The angel. I went to the corner shop to buy a Coke and I was coming back when I got mugged.”

“How is that good?”

“I threw the angel at him when he turned around. It knocked him out cold. The police are giving me a reward. I’ll split it with you.”

I still don’t believe in good luck charms. But I might start carrying a stone angel around with me anyway.

36 Comments | tags: Alastair's Photo Fiction, angel, blind, crime, fiction, flash fiction, good luck, luck, mugger, quirky, stone | posted in Light

December 26, 2014

Kid Logic – Friday Fictioneers

By David Stewart

Merry Christmas to everyone from the Green-Walled Tower! There is no snow touching its ivy-covered sides since this year has been unseasonably warm where I am, although it is still Christmas inside. I have been surrounded by young children and Christmas themes this weeks: thus, this story.

Kid Logic

The boys charged up the steps of the old castle, glad to be free of the car.

“The steps are lava!” Jack yelled.

“But they’re green,” Henry said. “They’re like little Christmas trees. Maybe there are tiny people there who decorate them at Christmas.”

“And Santa delivers presents, riding in the Catbus.”

“And then a dragon comes out of the ground and fights the Catbus and the people hide in the Christmas trees.”

“Yeah, they climb inside ornaments and use them for their houses.”

At that moment, Batman ballerina ran between them, crushing innumerable imaginary Christmas trees under her feet.

my little Batman ballerina

26 Comments | tags: castle, children, fantasy, fiction, flash fiction, Friday Fictioneers, funny, imagination, logic, quirky | posted in Friday Fictioneers

December 17, 2014

The Amber Man – Friday Fictioneers

By David Stewart

Isn’t it interesting how a story can change when seen through the window of a hundred words? Last week’s story, Holding the Bridge generated a lot of interesting ideas about what had happened to the guard on the bridge, which fit with the hundred-word version. Click here to read the longer story about what really happened on the bridge.

The Amber Man

The lights came on, treacling back to my retinas.

“Here’s where we keep him, gentlemen.”

Humans. Real people, at last.

Squeeze their throats. Burst their brains.

“How is he not dead?

“Someone this powerful? If he could die from starvation, this setup wouldn’t have been necessary.”

Help me! For God’s sake, don’t leave me again!

Kill them. Kill them all!

“It’s a shame. His advances saved billions of lives.”

“He also slaughtered fifty million with his bare hands.”

“He looks so peaceful.”

“Thanks to the drugs. Inside though it’s a war: like an angel and demon caught together in amber.”

36 Comments | tags: amber, angel, Demon, drugs, fiction, flash fiction, Friday Fictioneers, prison, superhuman | posted in Friday Fictioneers

December 16, 2014

Holding the Bridge – A Story Reframed

By David Stewart

I’m very interested in framing: what a story shows and what it doesn’t through its words. This is especially pertinent with the 100-word Friday Fictioneers stories I write every week, which have to show a complete story through a 10×10 aperture. That often means that important details and implications are left up to the reader to infer. Sometimes they do and sometimes they come away with a very different message from what I put into it.

Last week, I wrote the story Holding the Bridge, about a man guarding a bridge to a resort while hungry people came begging and eventually swarmed across the river anyway. Most commenters assumed he had been killed by the mob, which was an interesting idea and worked with the story, but wasn’t what I had intended at all. So, with more words to work with, here is the story as I intended it.

Holding the Bridge – A Story Reframed

I stood on the bridge in my new uniform, picking at the hat’s tight elastic under my chin.

“It’ll stretch out soon,” my boss said. “Once you’ve been here long enough. Remember, this is an easy job: just make sure no one comes over this bridge without a pass.”

He was right: it was a cushy job at that forgotten back entrance to the resort, sitting in my sagging lawn chair and pulling the sticky hat elastic away from my sweaty skin. Sometimes the shouts of rich vacationers found their way through the dense foliage but mostly there was no sound but the trickle of water and the buzz of vampiric mosquitoes.

Peaceful, at least, until the famine came and desperate people came begging. Then the door at the end of the bridge was kept locked and I was not given the key. Just keep them away, will you?

They came one by one at first. Just a cup of water. Just a bite of bread.

Sorry. I wish I could.

Then more and more. Damn you, you little brat. Let us in!

Sorry.

Where’s your humanity?

Sorry.

I stood at the end of the bridge with that single, hollow word on my tongue while my freshly-pressed company hat soaked up my sweat and its accursed elastic choked off my air supply.

I watched as they finally threw sticks and garbage into the river, choking the flow and making the bridge that I could not provide. As darkness fell, I took off my jacket and added it to their effort.

Soon they started to clamber across. Just before I went down to help them across, I pulled off the hat, snapping the elastic.

It never stretched out, I thought. I wouldn’t have wanted it to.